Climate tsar skirts dysfunctional models to scare us
WILL Steffen continues to promulgate misinformation about the climate ("Clean up energy for the sake of our grandchildren", 23/7). Passing over the rotten entrails of dysfunctional climate models that have not lived up to promise, he has moved on to using extreme weather to scare a populace into extreme action.
So Steffen points to recent weather extremes as portents of a coming doom, claiming it's a future we don't have to have, if only we bow at the Climate Commissioner's altar, shake our tail feathers and pay our dues.
When seen in their historical context, however, the numerous wet and dry periods and extreme weather events that have affected the country are unconnected to carbon dioxide levels. Looking at past weather records it's clearly a future we have already had and one our descendants will continue to experience, regardless of what we do today.
The commission continues to push for inconsequential marginal solutions to our weather and energy problems, ignoring the obvious solutions built around effectively dealing with the extremely routine weather events we know about all too well. If the problem was fixed with levees, dams, and nuclear power what would our witch-doctors do for a living?

Marc Hendrickx

The Australian's Cut and paste also adds some cherries missing from Will's basket:Climate researcher Will Steffen in The Australian yesterday:
OVER the past decade, the Swedes have reduced their emissions of carbon dioxide by about 13 per cent, the best performance of any of the world's wealthy countries. Over the same period, the Swedish economy has recorded a higher rate of GDP growth than any of the OECD's "big seven" economies. So much for the myth taking vigorous action on climate change will damage or slow the economy.

Something Steffen forgot to mention? From Energy in Sweden, 2010, Swedish Energy Agency:
IN 2009, nuclear power supplied 37 per cent of the country's electricity, hydro power supplied 49 per cent and wind power almost 2 per cent, with the remaining 12 per cent being made up of fossil-fuelled and biofuel-based production.

Something else Steffen forgot? The Economist, June 6:
ANNUAL growth as high as 6.4 per cent in the first quarter. Unemployment falling fast. The budget in surplus this year. Public debt heading to below 40 per cent of GDP. How did the Swedes do it? . . . the main answer is the prudent pro-market policies of Fredrik Reinfeldt'scentre-right coalition, which came to power in October 2006.

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